white picket fences in your eyes
by thecivilunrest
Summary: It feels kind of like drowning. / / Quinn, it isn't too much to ask, wanting to be perfect. Spoilers for season three.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Glee_. Believe me, I do not. The second season would have been far different if I had been a part of RIB. Nor do I own the title. I'm not sure what song it comes from, but I know that it comes from some song on my iTunes and I thought that it fit so.

**A/N: **My first time writing for _Glee_, and honestly I didn't think that I'd be writing about Quinn of all people. But here I am? The last few episodes have just really helped with that, I guess. I don't know. This is kind of a mess but I kind of like it? Almost? Spoilers for all aired episodes, and everything past that is speculation. Also, please review, I'd really appreciate it. I'd especially like to know about my characterization.

_White Picket Fences in Your Eyes_

Lucy Fabray just wants to be perfect.

That's what she thinks as she sits on the couch, eating potato chips out of the bag one by one.

She looks at the beautiful, smiling girls on the screen and _wants _with a yearning that's so strong that it drowns her, filling up her lungs and expanding them. They all have perfect hair, perfect faces, perfect bodies. It's like they came out of a factory all ready to play, no assembly required.

Lucy can feel her father's presence as soon as he walks in the door. He glances at the television screen and smiles faintly, probably remembering when his wife walked on a stage like that once upon a time. And then he looks at Lucy with grease on her lips and fingers, the offending bag beside her, empty.

"Lucy, you need to go outside and play," he says, his voice tired now. Sometimes Lucy wonders if he's disappointed with the way that she turned out. He probably wanted a smaller version of her mother-which is exactly what Lucy herself wants to be-but instead he got a daughter with baby fat that never left.

He's forever telling her to go outside and play, like exercise is the key to a door that Lucy will never open.

"Okay," she replies, taking one last look at the flawless faces before everything on the screen goes black.

.x.

"Wear a 'Wide Load' sign next time, Caboose," the boy sneers before making Lucy trip. He's tall, with black hair, blue eyes and the sort of face that's carved in marble, forever immortalized. Lucy's had a crush on him forever, or at least had one until now.

Lucy's books fall all over the ground, papers and pens scattering. She hears someone laugh as they walk by, but other than that no one else notices or cares. Scrambling, Lucy tries to gather up as much of her things as she can. She's underwater, or at least that's what it feels like. Anytime someone does something like this to her it feels a little bit like drowning, like she's inhaling water.

As she walks down the hallway she sees the boy that pushed her talking to two girls whose backs are against the wall. They're giggling, their perfect hair bouncing and gleaming in the florescent lighting of the hallway.

Lucy wants to be one of those girls. She wants boys to talk to her, to smile at her after they step on another girl's heart. She wants to be the _reason _that a boy wants to step on another girl's heart, someday.

It actually turns out being like the butterfly effect, the fact that a butterfly could flap its wings in Kansas and create a tsunami in Thailand.

A boy can push down a girl and, somehow, create something like a monster.

.x.

Her father and mother tell her that summer that she's going to have to transfer schools. Lucy takes this as an opportunity. No one would take her seriously here, they wouldn't believe that everything that she's going to do to herself would be natural.

They'd see her as a liar, a fake, someone that tries to hard. Every time they'd look at her they'd see her fat ghost, the outline of the soft rolls that were on her face and stomach.

But in Lima they won't. In Lima they'd see her exactly how she'd want to be seen. They'd see what she will be.

"Call me Quinn," she tells her parents after.

They can't turn her name into something cruel and taunting now. She'd love to see them try.

.x.

She asks Daddy if she could have plastic surgery two days after their family meeting. He agrees too quickly, like that's exactly what he wanted after all. For a second it hurts, but she realizes that once she gets the surgery he'll never be disappointed that she's not perfect enough ever again. Quinn's sure of it.

After she heals she doesn't watch the pageants that summer, wanting and drowning and eating. Instead she runs, feeling the pull of her muscles and the way that the air burns her lungs. (It feels a little bit like drowning, and that's what she thinks it is. She's finally drowned Lucy, something that the girl had been threatening to do to herself all along.)

She goes to cheer camp because she hears that cheerleading is a good source of exercise. That, and because in all of the movies she used to watch cheerleaders were always on top and their hair was always perfect, along with their faces.

Quinn's face is perfect, her body is perfect, her new life is _going _to be perfect. Just like they all should have been a long time ago.

.x.

She makes the Cheerios. It's something that makes her happy, and it's just another addition to the perfection that is Quinn Fabray.

She wears that red uniform and makes her hips sway just a little bit more than they should and she feels the skirt against her bare legs and knows she looks good in it. She worked all summer and had surgery to look good in it. It's practically a given.

Finn Hudson's eyes are the ones that stay on her the longest, and she likes that. He plays football and he's tall and sweet and she thinks she could care about him if she tries hard enough.

So Santana has a party after a football game, and even though Finn's hair is still wet from the shower that he had taken hours ago after the game, Quinn kisses him. He tastes like cheap beer and stale potato chip and boy.

She's not sure if that's something that she wants but it's something that she needs.

.x.

Quinn now has the perfect boyfriend and the perfect life and everything is just perfect. For once she's not drowning, but instead her head's above the water that she's treading.

Sometimes she wonders if drowning isn't better after all. It'd be easier for one thing, but Quinn's never been one to take the easy way out. She can't let go, not now that she has everything.

.x.

She and Finn watch the Miss America pageant together. He's kissing her neck, the pulse points. His lips are warm, comfortable and she barely feels them. That's probably a good thing, he isn't very good at this.

Quinn doesn't look at the screen and _want_ anymore. She doesn't have to. She already _is_. Quinn can now say that she can see herself on that stage in one of those dresses, though the last thing that she'd ever want to do is wear _Miss Ohio _across her chest.

"Oh, look at Miss California," Quinn breathes. "Her dress is the prettiest one. Don't you think so, Finn?"

Finn looks up, glances at the screen, and then goes back to her neck. He makes affirmative noises.

"Finn, why aren't you watching this?" Her voice is sharp, sharper than she wanted it to be.

"Honestly, who cares?" Finn looks so confused that it'd be almost funny if it wasn't so infuriating. He just doesn't _get _it, and maybe he never will. But that's okay because they'll only be together for the rest of high school anyway. Perfect girls find perfect boys in college that will make lots of money some day, and in the process become perfect women. Finn just doesn't fit into the equation for the rest of Quinn's life, and never will. Honestly she doesn't even feel that bad about it. "They all look so... fake."

And Quinn looks at the girls on the screen, with their white teeth and perfect hair and flawless faces and wonders how Finn can see anything other than fake when he looks at her.

.x.

Sleeping with Puck was probably the worst thing that she's ever done. It's not what a good _Christian _girl would do, it's not what a perfect girl would do, but she does it anyway.

Maybe it's because of the coolers or maybe it's because of the look in Puck's eyes when he told her that she wasn't fat, she's not sure.

But either way there's a part of her, at least when she's with Puck, that realizes that maybe she doesn't have to be perfect.

.x.

When she realizes that she's pregnant she drowns again, or at least tries to make herself drown. She throws away all of the evidence, all five of the pregnancy tests and the bottles of water that she drank, and starts a warm bath. The steam hits her face and she steps into the water, so hot that it might scald her, but she doesn't care.

She sticks her head in the water and tries to pretend that she's still perfect, that the heat of the water could get rid of every imperfection, that if she drowns she'd have a new shot at life.

.x.

She lies because even though being pregnant during her sophomore year of high school isn't perfect, being pregnant by her boyfriend is a little bit better than being pregnant is by his best friend.

And that lie is what makes her perfection go down in flames.

No more Cheerios, no more Finn, no more home.

Just glee club, and Puck, and a baby bump.

Her whole life's been razed and people expect second best to be enough. It's not. It could never be.

.x.

Beth.

It seems like the perfect name for her baby. For any baby, really.

Quinn signs the papers and doesn't let Puck hold her hand or speak to her after it's all over. She kisses Beth one last time and wishes her luck.

Quinn knows better than anyone that she's going to need it. She tells her baby girl secrets before she hands her over to Shelby.

_Be happy, be healthy, never worry about being enough. _

She knows that she's never going to listen to her own advice.

.x.

She comes back to school, wanting everything that she lost, what's her fairytale all over again. Except this time it's got to be better, because she knows what it's like to have everything at your fingertips and then to lose it.

Quinn Fabray gets it all back, her Cheerio uniform, her old boyfriend, and the best part is she finally gets what she's always wanted: she's finally the reason that a boy steps on another girl's heart.

And okay, maybe she has to switch boyfriends a few times, but at least she's away from Puck with his eyes that know way too much about her. Either way there's another perfect football boy in her life and he fits like he should.

So she hides her stretch marks and creates a smiling mask to wear all the time, like that's all it's going to take to make everything better.

.x.

It's amazing how easily something can be lost a second time. No prom queen, no Nationals, nothing worth remembering. Nothing worth keeping in her pocket and taking out on a rainy day. Nothing.

Quinn wonders if she ever really had it at all, or if she was just pretending too hard.

Every time that she thinks that she has something it just crumbles underneath her fingers.

_From dust to dust_, she thinks quietly in her own head. Because she came from nothing and here she is, being nothing just one more time.

So this time she embraces it, grabbing on to her broken self and not letting go.

She finds the Skanks behind Breadstix rolling up a joint. One of them glares at her and Quinn realizes that she doesn't even know her name because she's never seen these girls in her life. She's never had to. They were the underbelly that collected all of the dust when Quinn was the shiny, white, beautiful thing on top.

"Either your in or you're out, sister," the one that's closest to her feet tells her. They don't even look scared that she's going to turn them in, which is something that last year's girl would have at least contemplated. Christian duty, and all that bullshit.

"I'm in," Quinn says and sits down, her white skirt getting dirty with the grime of shadows, but she doesn't even mind. Not at all.

That's all she feels like she's worth anyway.

.x.

She's not even stoned when she dyes her hair pink. She just does it because she can. Because she wants to. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Besides, the hair brings out her cheeks or something, or at least that's what one of the Skanks tells her after she dries her hair and looks at the mess that she is.

So she goes back to school, armed with nicotine and hair dye and the fact that she doesn't give two shits about anything and doesn't have to.

.x.

"I don't care about you," Puck tells her, and for the first time Quinn can't even think of something to say back. Water enters her lungs and she can't even breathe anymore. Hasn't been able to breathe all summer, really, but this is what might kill her after all.

When it came to Puck insulting used to be easy, there was just so much to insult because of his many messy imperfections, but now? Now it's not.

Because she's not the girl in the cheerleading uniform and he's not the juvenile delinquent that he used to be. He's trying.

_I don't care about myself either_, Quinn thinks after he walks away and she's left with rain on her face. No one cares about her anymore.

They're all just waiting for her to fall further and further down the rabbit hole. She isn't

.x.

Beth is so close and yet so far.

Quinn used to find that saying stupid, because if something was too far why didn't you just go a little bit further? It used to be easy to do that, at least for her.

But now she understands. She understands the pathos in life, understands that there are some things that you can't cheat or charm your way into.

Quinn Fabray, or Lucy Caboosie, or just Lucy with the potato chips and the bad nose has evolved into something that not even her own child could be proud of. Or at least that's what Mr. Shue and Shelby have told her, and she believes them.

Quinn wants her child. She wants one more shot at being perfect-but instead this time she'll the perfect mother. She could do that, she thinks.

All she has to do is the opposite of her mother and then things will be perfect.

So she needs to boy and she needs the baby. These things, this _perfection_, will make her happy, she knows it. The picket fence, the smiles, the family, these are things that all of America crave. And maybe she'll have to stay in Lima to do it, but she will if she has to.

Nothing is more important than keeping her daughter.

And after having her empire destroyed more than once she knows exactly how to defend it. She's ready to do what it takes, always.

.x.

Quinn loses her daughter-loses everything again. Except Puck. He's still there.

And this time when she loses her daughter she lets him hold her hand.

That's probably what saves her. She isn't drowning anymore.


End file.
